Edwin Steele and his son Edwin Steele (1839–1919) – distinguished here as Edwin senior and Edwin junior – belonged to a family of ceramic fruit and flower painters. The two Edwins also painted similar still-life arrangements on canvas. Edwin senior’s father was Thomas Steel (or Steele, 1770/1771–1850) who was apprenticed at Wedgwood’s in 1787. He married Susannah Taylor in Burslem on 19th September 1803 and had three sons, all baptised there in 1807. Edwin was probably born in 1805 since later census returns show him a year younger than his wife (b.1804): Thomas and Horatio (1806–1874) were the other two and both also ceramic painters. Around 1815 Thomas senior joined the Nottingham Road works in Derby for about eleven years but by late 1826 he was at the Rockingham factory in Yorkshire.
He returned to Staffordshire in 1832 and worked as one of Minton’s principal painters for the rest of his life.
Edwin senior was apprenticed at the Derby factory in 1818, as were his brothers, and married Charlotte Laban there on 18th June 1826 before following his father to Rockingham. In 1832 he returned to Derby, then moved back to the Staffordshire Potteries. He was noted as a ‘China Painter’ at the baptisms of three of his children – Amelia in 1826, Sarah Anne in 1832 and Thomas in 1835 – and when Edwin junior was born on 6th May 1839 in Russell Street, Shelton, Hanley. (Their mother Charlotte’s surname was then noted as ‘formerly Kirk’ rather than Laban, which lacks current explanation.) By 1841 the family had moved to Wolverhampton where Edwin senior worked for Ryton & Walton as a flower/fruit painter and Japanner on their domestic papier-maché wares: trays, boxes etc., and some quite large decorative panels. They returned to the Potteries sometime between the birth of the last child, Eliza, in 1842, and 1851, when they were living in Keeling Lane, Hanley.
Thereafter Edwin senior was largely a freelance ceramic painter for firms including Coalport, Davenport and Minton. At the 1851 and 1861 censuses he called himself an ‘Artist’ and at the latter he was living in Birch Street, Hanley. In 1866 and 1867 he was taken to court over unfinished work, probably because of difficulties around the time he lost his wife, who died early in May 1866. In the first case, brought by a China maker called G. H. Allen, the matter was dismissed (Staffordshire Advertiser, 3rd March 1866). In the second he was charged by John Aynsley, a Hanley manufacturer for whom he had exclusively painted for four years at up to £1 per week until early June 1867, although he was also simultaneously ‘employed by others as a designer and devoted a portion of his time to paintings in oil’. Aynsley had been ‘anxious to retain him, as he was a very skilled artizan’ but Steele denied any formal contract existed between them given his claim to be ‘an “artist” and [that] he would not bind himself to work for any individual, as he believed his talents belonged to the “country at large”’. The magistrates disagreed, saying he had been employed as a ‘servant within the meaning of the Act’ and ordered him to repay £1 plus costs to Aynsley (Staffordshire Sentinel, 26th October 1867).
He seems to have made some local headway as a late-life oil painter. By July 1870, when lodging with Mrs Anne Clarke, a widow, at 26 Broom Street, Hanley, one of his canvases of ‘Flowers and Fruit, in Oil’ was on the list of local exhibits intended for the South Kensington Exhibition of 1871 (Staffordshire Sentinel, 9th July). That year’s census (2nd April) mistakenly records him as ‘Edw[ar]d Steele’ a ‘Flower Painter Pottery’ aged 58, but Mrs Clarke was present when he died at Broom Street from ‘bronchial asthma’ on 25th August 1871, and more accurately informed the local registrar later the same day calling him a ‘Potter’s painter’, aged 64: that matches his baptism (1807) and may have been all he was certain of as regards year.
There are fifteen flower and fruit paintings attributed to ‘Edwin Steele’ on Art UK. It is hard to be entirely sure what is by who, given their very similar styles and signatures, but most seem to be by Edwin junior and the only four dated ones (1889–1908) must be. Others have been sighted on the market dating 1868–1918, which might include late work by his father.
The Steeles (including Horatio, Edwin senior’s brother) are well recorded in ceramic literature.
Summarised from Art UK’s Art Detective discussion ‘Did Edwin Steele (1861–1933) paint this still life of flowers and fruit?’
Edwin senior was apprenticed at the Derby factory in 1818, as were his brothers, and married Charlotte Laban there on 18th June 1826 before following his father to Rockingham. In 1832 he returned to Derby, then moved back to the Staffordshire Potteries. He was noted as a ‘China Painter’ at the baptisms of three of his children – Amelia in 1826, Sarah Anne in 1832 and Thomas in 1835 – and when Edwin junior was born on 6th May 1839 in Russell Street, Shelton, Hanley. (Their mother Charlotte’s surname was then noted as ‘formerly Kirk’ rather than Laban, which lacks current explanation.) By 1841 the family had moved to Wolverhampton where Edwin senior worked for Ryton & Walton as a flower/fruit painter and Japanner on their domestic papier-maché wares: trays, boxes etc., and some quite large decorative panels. They returned to the Potteries sometime between the birth of the last child, Eliza, in 1842, and 1851, when they were living in Keeling Lane, Hanley.
Thereafter Edwin senior was largely a freelance ceramic painter for firms including Coalport, Davenport and Minton. At the 1851 and 1861 censuses he called himself an ‘Artist’ and at the latter he was living in Birch Street, Hanley. In 1866 and 1867 he was taken to court over unfinished work, probably because of difficulties around the time he lost his wife, who died early in May 1866. In the first case, brought by a China maker called G. H. Allen, the matter was dismissed (Staffordshire Advertiser, 3rd March 1866). In the second he was charged by John Aynsley, a Hanley manufacturer for whom he had exclusively painted for four years at up to £1 per week until early June 1867, although he was also simultaneously ‘employed by others as a designer and devoted a portion of his time to paintings in oil’. Aynsley had been ‘anxious to retain him, as he was a very skilled artizan’ but Steele denied any formal contract existed between them given his claim to be ‘an “artist” and [that] he would not bind himself to work for any individual, as he believed his talents belonged to the “country at large”’. The magistrates disagreed, saying he had been employed as a ‘servant within the meaning of the Act’ and ordered him to repay £1 plus costs to Aynsley (Staffordshire Sentinel, 26th October 1867).
He seems to have made some local headway as a late-life oil painter. By July 1870, when lodging with Mrs Anne Clarke, a widow, at 26 Broom Street, Hanley, one of his canvases of ‘Flowers and Fruit, in Oil’ was on the list of local exhibits intended for the South Kensington Exhibition of 1871 (Staffordshire Sentinel, 9th July). That year’s census (2nd April) mistakenly records him as ‘Edw[ar]d Steele’ a ‘Flower Painter Pottery’ aged 58, but Mrs Clarke was present when he died at Broom Street from ‘bronchial asthma’ on 25th August 1871, and more accurately informed the local registrar later the same day calling him a ‘Potter’s painter’, aged 64: that matches his baptism (1807) and may have been all he was certain of as regards year.
There are fifteen flower and fruit paintings attributed to ‘Edwin Steele’ on Art UK. It is hard to be entirely sure what is by who, given their very similar styles and signatures, but most seem to be by Edwin junior and the only four dated ones (1889–1908) must be. Others have been sighted on the market dating 1868–1918, which might include late work by his father.
The Steeles (including Horatio, Edwin senior’s brother) are well recorded in ceramic literature.
Summarised from Art UK’s Art Detective discussion ‘Did Edwin Steele (1861–1933) paint this still life of flowers and fruit?’
Text source: Art Detective
